Russia Trying to Stoke U.S. Racial Tensions Before Election, Officials Say

[The Blue Flower]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/politics/russian-interference-race.html

WASHINGTON — The Russian government has stepped up efforts to inflame racial tensions in the United States as part of its bid to influence November’s presidential election, including trying to incite violence by white supremacist groups and to stoke anger among African-Americans, according to seven American officials briefed on recent intelligence.

Russia’s lead intelligence agency, the S.V.R., has apparently gone beyond 2016 methods of interference, when operatives tried to stoke racial animosity by creating fake Black Lives Matter groups and spreading disinformation to depress black voter turnout. Now, Russia is also trying to influence white supremacist groups, the officials said; they gave few details, but one official said federal investigators are examining how at least one neo-Nazi organization with ties to Russia is funded.

Other Russian efforts, which American intelligence agencies have tracked, involve simply prodding white nationalists to more aggressively spread hate messages and amplifying their invective. Russian operatives are also trying to push black extremist groups toward violence, according to multiple officials, though they did not detail how.

Russia’s more public influence operations, like state-backed news organizations, have continued to push divisive racial narratives, including stories emphasizing allegations of police abuse in the United States and highlighting racism against African-Americans within the military. Russia’s primary goal, according to several officials briefed on the intelligence who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, is to foster a sense of chaos in the United States, though its motivations are under debate and difficult to decipher in the absence of high-level intelligence sources inside Moscow.

[Iliyah]

1. Well it looks like a lot of whites of all ages . .

are protesting and hating on shithole.

[Salviati]

2. Of course they are....

And trump will help them, any way he can.

[RhodeIslandOne]

3. They must be ecstatic.

[Blaukraut]

4. Something needs to be done about Russia.

They are working to destabilize the EU, NATO, and the US for their own purposes. It's maddening to watch it happen and knowing that Trump is stopping any meaningful retaliation.

[Blue_true]

14. Their goal for decades has been to weaken NATO and other international alliances.

Trump's declared hostility to those same institutions played right into their hands.

[Hstch05]

17. It's almost as if

he's doing their bidding. Like he's beholden to them or something. Like they have compormising information about him, or he owes huge debts to their banks. But that would NEVER happen.

[Afromania]

5. They need to go take care of their covid patients and stop throwing medical people out of windows.

Nevermind this country. The racism here has always been here.

[still_one]

6. No surprise

[rockfordfile]

10. I agree

[Skittles]

7. yup

and people play right into their hands

[Hoyt]

9. That's the really sad part.

[Skittles]

11. look at how many people actually VOTED for Trump

critical thinking skills are very lacking these days

[Lock him up.]

8. Officials say... Officials?

Who are these "Officials" and moreso... what do they intend to DO about it?

Sit down and DO nothing? Putin's puppet is actively trying to get US killed by the hundred thousands (already started...) every minute on TWITTER, and they'll all sit down and DO nothing?

WOW... So many Braves in the Home... Mueller?? Your duty is not over. Get out of retirement and tell ALL you know that the traitor baRR is hiding, hun?? How bow THAT! No? Just stay in retirement and drive your car...

Putin has won thanks to the traitors in the Senate and DOJ. Nice, eh?

[dalton99a]

12. Kick

[Blue_true]

13. Donald Trump is alleged to have allowed Putin to get ahold of

the names of high level spies that we used in Russian government. Putin eliminated them all. So now we have no one that can pass along the inner workings of Putin's plans for the USA.

[DENVERPOPS]

18. Didn't Jared

do the same thing? Taking intel to the Saudi's on spies and admin that were disloyal to the Top Saudi Families?
All for a 150-300 Million dollar gift from them to bail out one of his and his Dad's real estate fiasco blunders???????
Trump and Jared also turned a blind eye to the dismemberment of the U.S. Journalist about that same time......

[Blue_true]

19. Yes, there were claims that Jared gave up Kashogi and other people to the Saudis. nt

[DENVERPOPS]

25. And also

Jared came home after divulging to the Saudi some U.S. Intelligence information about the ones in their administration who were covert spies......

And he had a 150-300 million dollar mortgage loan payment coming due, and didn't have that kind of money, so the heads of Saudi thanked him for the U.S. intel and gave him the bucks to take home and pay his mortgage payment.

Let' see. Jared having a top top secret clearance, takes highly classified information to another country in order to grift money for him and his family???????/

[Blue_true]

26. It all sounds like standard Trump family operating procedure to me.

I would love to see those assholes brought up on treason charges.

[betsuni]

15. K&R

[BigmanPigman]

16. I am sure Russian bots are working overtime.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

20. I figured as much.

They're probably stoking much of it by using Fuckerturd's FB platform too.

[BadgerMom]

21. Sure knocked rising C-19 death toll right out of the news.

[Eyeball_Kid]

22. The US is very weak right now. n/t

[d_b]

23. fuck Putin

[ancianita]

24. Russia invented all that Boogaloo Movement, too, right? All those guys were so rational before

Last edited Sun May 31, 2020, 01:33 AM - Edit history (1)

Russians and Trump showed up to yank them toward the White House. And because of the Russians only, Trump beautifully wrought a triumphant East-West alliance of white supremacists, replete with T-shirts that say "I'd rather be Russian than Democrat"

This Russian counterintelligence sounds all well and good.
Yet it's too vague.
If there's a Russian media offensive driving wedges into our psyches, maybe it's because there IS police abuse and racial prejudice within the military.
Russia doesn't create them. "fake Black Lives Matter"?"fake gun humper groups"? They're fake because Russia shit stirs them??

Come ON.
"Officials" speak on condition of anonymity"?? To their own fellow Americans?
and information that could save our nation is "so sensitive" that the very people who need it can't know it?? Their own fellow Americans?

Furthermore, does Russia really HAVE to try? Putin and others have publicly said we're more than capable ourselves of "taking it from here."

Come ON.

Something smells deflective about all that.

Americans shouldn't deflect their attention from our own homegrown white supremacy sickness. Especially right now. We must not look away from the nationwide rebellion of our structural racism.

We should be able to see at least three things at a time:
-- how white supremacy serves a foreign power's own interests in capturing our nation;
-- how it serves racial capitalism's interests in capturing our government;
-- how it pacifies local fear and prejudice with a false sense of superiority while living under enforced poverty.

Russia's white supremacy sickness is evident through its Eurasian identity and imperialism as much as American and European white supremacy are evident in our mutual Middle Passage slavery and colonial imperialism.

But at least we in America have had an inkling of our own historical, internal sickness -- a white supremacist sickness projected as black people's pathology.

We shouldn't go all in for some vague deflective fearmongering by some anonymous officials. It shouldn't make us pivot from this current chaos of our own making in this country.

If we need a scapegoat, at least make it a three-headed scapegoat.

This report is more noise than signal. I'm not surprised it's in the NYT.